Soon a jury will be assembled in Buffalo by the federal government seeking a death sentence for the gunman who shot and killed 10 people in 2022 at the Tops supermarket in a racially motivated mass shooting. He has already been convicted and sentenced to 11 terms of life without parole (plus 90 years). But the federal government still wants to execute him.
As part of that sentencing process, the families of those who were killed will have a chance to speak about the irreparable harm done to them — which will inevitably bring about a reopening of the wounds of loss and tragedy.
I understand that anguish. I have sat in a similar courtroom, under similar circumstances. Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, murdered my mother, two cousins and six others in another racially motivated mass killing in 2015 at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. For that, he was sentenced to death.
I would never tell anyone how to feel in such a situation. I can only share my own story. And having lived through the loss of my loved ones, followed by a trial where we had to hear about the terrible details of the murders again revisiting all the pain — I can say that Roof’s death sentence did not bring my family closure. It only prolonged our agony.
How can families of victims not want vengeance? I was very conflicted throughout Roof’s trial. It brought me new misery to see such a young man with so much hate in his heart. But by the time the sentencing phase ended, I felt that killing him would do nothing to help me heal. After much prayer and asking God to help me, I knew in my heart that killing him would not solve anything.
Because he was sentenced to death, we are still suffering in ways that could have been avoided. Roof’s appeals will probably continue for years, and just the experience of seeing further news stories about him brings back all of the horror of his violence, renewing our wounds.
Every time our case is in the news, I am returned to that terrible day and the searing pain of the weeks, months and years that followed. It almost feels as if he gets to continue the terror he intended to create, because the focus is on him, while his victims’ families wait for the supposed finality of an execution that may never come.
This is the unintended but very real consequence of the death penalty. Rather than helping my family heal, Dylann Roof’s death sentence has done the opposite.
It is my hope that the federal government will abandon this attempt to seek the death penalty for Tops Supermarket shooter Peyton Gendron. Moving on from that will allow the victims’ families to continue their healing process — not set it back and cause them further pain.
I pray that God will give the families of the Buffalo shooting victims comfort, and that God will give Gendron the opportunity to understand and accept responsibility for what he has done and that he can find a way to use the remainder of his life for good, even in prison.
For everyone else, please don’t speak for victims and their families telling us what to think. The most powerful thing you can do for a murder victim’s family is simply to offer authentic and nonjudgmental presence. We just need to know that we have a community around us that is about love.
Risher is the board chair emeritus for Death Penalty Action. Her mother and two cousins were killed in the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C.